Shades of Friendship
by Adalia Zandra
Summary: The fallout from the events of Shades of Grey. See Chapter 1 for more detailed summary. Jackcentric, HC fic. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Shades of Friendship  
**by **Adalia Zandra**

Disclaimer: _I don't own these characters, they aren't mine, I'm just borrowing them, so please don't sue me. Thanks!_

Fandom: Stargate: SG-1.  
Crossovers: None.

Category: Angst, H/C.  
Status: COMPLETE.

Rating: The Rating Formerly Known As PG-13.  
Warnings: _Spoilers for A Hundred Days and Shades of Grey. Certain people act much meaner than they usually do in the show, it might be a bit out of their traditional character in spots. Author does not play well with main characters. Asgard alert!_

Summary: _Kind of an AU follow-on to Shades of Grey. Jack did his job too well, the SGC and SG-1 especially are having a hard time accepting him back and trusting him again. Hammond is on his side but can only do so much. After two weeks of cold shoulders, distrusting looks, and whispered comments, Jack is at his wits' end. With no other support system to fall back on and unsure if his friendships can be salvaged, Jack makes one, last desperate attempt to set things right. When the other members of SG-1, still angry, unthinkingly shoot him down again, they find that they've pushed him too far. Realizing their mistake too late and wondering if they've lost him for real, they get a hard lesson in friendship from a most unexpected source._

Author's Notes: _This is my first SG-1 fic that's not an SG-1/MacGyver fic. There's a first time for everything, or so they say. Of course, I haven't posted any of the others yet, so it's really a moot point. Enjoy the fic!_

* * *

PART ONE 

"SG-1, report to the briefing room. Now!"

It was fairly early in the morning. In three separate rooms on base, three members of SG-1 were startled as General Hammond's voice came blaring angrily out of the base PA system. Heeding his irate command, all three dropped what they were doing and headed for the briefing room. They met in the corridor just outside and, sharing silent looks amongst themselves, entered together.

When they stepped in they saw Dr. Fraiser sitting in one of the large leather briefing room chairs. Standing at the head of the table was General Hammond. He looked like his voice had sounded over the PA. Angry. Daniel looked like he was about to angrily demand the reason why they'd been paged, but before any of them had a chance to say anything Hammond tore into them.

"Do any of you see anything wrong in this room?"

"Sir?" Carter asked, her confusion mirroring that of the other two standing next to her. She looked to Fraiser for some clue, but the doctor remained silent.

"It's not a complicated question. What's wrong here?" Hammond paused expectantly. When none of them had a reply, he asked a different question. "Can any of you tell me how many members there are on SG-1?"

"Last I checked . . . four?" Daniel said, impatiently looking at his companions almost as if seeking conformation on the guess.

"Well, thank you, Dr. Jackson," Hammond replied. "That's absolutely correct. There are four members of SG-1. Now . . . here's another question for the _three_ of you. _Where_ is your fourth?"

The three of them exchanged looks again.

"We . . . don't know, Sir," Carter replied.

"Indeed," Teal'c added. "I have not seen O'Neill since yesterday afternoon."

"None of you have any idea?" Hammond asked again.

Daniel shrugged. Carter shook her head. They both looked at Dr. Fraiser again, but again she didn't speak up. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.

"Well, _I _know where he is," Hammond went on. He pointed at the closed door to his office. "He's in there, where I found him waiting for me when I arrived this morning. Dr. Fraiser and I were supposed to meet to discuss upgrading some of the medical facilities here on base. Instead, I had to ask her to leave the room and wait here while I spent the last twenty minutes having the most surreal conversation I have ever had with my 2IC." He paused for a moment, eyeing each of them, this time including Fraiser. Then he continued, "I know everyone on base has had a hard time adjusting to what actually happened. But it's been two weeks now, people! The colonel is starting to doubt that things will ever make it back to anything remotely like normal and frankly, I haven't seen much evidence to assuage those doubts! He asked me to call you three down here. He's got something he wants to say to all of you. And I want you to understand that whatever he decides is best as leader of SG-1 will have my full support. Have I made myself clear?"

Teal'c's eyebrow had floated even higher, and all three nodded. Carter was starting to look worried as she mumbled a yessir, but Daniel still had a recalcitrant expression on his face.

Sparing them one last glare, Hammond turned and went to open the office door. He then stepped back as O'Neill entered the room, hands in pockets and a slight scowl on his uncharacteristically pale face.

Hammond pushed the door most of the way closed again and moved to stand so he could see all of the other five people in the room. Jack had stopped halfway across the room to his team, a position from which he could see both them and Fraiser, who had stood up. He looked at each of them briefly and acknowledged them with their name.

"Doc. Carter. Daniel. Teal'c." He paused to take a deep, but shaky, breath and then continued without further preamble, "It's been two weeks since . . . since I got back. I need to ask each of you a question and I need an honest answer, right now. Okay?"

They each nodded, with varying degrees of expression from Teal'c's cold impassivity to Daniel's outright impatience.

"I need to know right now if you trust me," O'Neill stated flatly. He dropped his gaze from their surprised expressions to the floor and added, "because if even one of you doesn't then I'm going to recommend to General Hammond that he split up SG-1."

Three gasps of surprise and one gruff "O'Neill?" later, the colonel seemed to pick up some steam.

"Why does that surprise you all so much?" he asked, scowling again. "The way you've all been acting . . ."

But Daniel cut him off. "The way _we've _acted? I can't believe you're going to stand there and lecture about the way _we've _acted!"

Carter jumped in next, incredulously. "And . . . Sir! Break up SG-1?"

"You can't!" Fraiser agreed.

"Indeed, O'Neill," Teal'c put in his two cents. "I do not believe that such drastic measures are necessary, nor would they be advisable."

"Wouldn't they be, though, Teal'c?" O'Neill replied with an oddly strangled laugh. "What good would we be? A team can't function without trust."

"Trust, he says!" Daniel nearly shouted. "Now he worries about trust!"

Jack sighed. "Daniel, I . . ."

"I don't want to hear it, _Colonel_," Daniel spat. "What right have you got to demand trust from us?"

There was a sudden awkward silence as that question hung heavily in the air. Then O'Neill shook his head.

"Absolutely none, Dr. Jackson. General Hammond, Sir," he turned to the older man and pulled an envelope out of his pocket. All the expression had gone out of his face, and his voice. "It's my opinion that SG-1 is no longer a viable team. And by the way, here's my resignation. Effective immediately."

"Colonel . . ." Hammond started, refusing to take the envelope and hoping to talk him out of it. But his voice was quickly drowned out.

"Sir! Colonel, please, don't do this to us!" Carter pleaded.

"Don't do this to you, Major Carter?" O'Neill replied with the same dead, expressionless voice. "I'm sorry, but I was under the impression that as the commanding officer of this team it was my responsibility to take action if I felt the team was no longer cohesive. Which SG-1 sure as hell isn't. General," he said, turning to Hammond and holding the envelope out again.

Hammond shook his head, again refusing to take it. But before he could even open his mouth any reply he might have made was again cut short as Daniel lunged forward. He grabbed the envelope from Jack, who stumbled back in an attempt to keep the distance between them.

Daniel followed him, though, waving the envelope angrily, and he kept giving ground until the linguist had him backed up against the briefing room wall. Daniel looked positively furious as he got right up into Jack's face.

"So you're just going to run away and retire? How many times does this make? What is this, the patented Jack O'Neill answer for everything that ails you? Just retire, and hope it all goes away?"

Carter and Teal'c had followed Daniel, coming up next to him and both looking a mixture of confused and accusatory. Fraiser had come up on Daniel's other side, putting a hand on his arm in an attempt to calm him down. But Daniel just shrugged her off and continued his tirade, "Yes, retirement solves everything! Give me a break, _Colonel!_"

Thus boxed in by his team and trapped with nowhere to escape to, Jack seemed to simply wilt under Daniel's attack. The expressionless mask he'd been maintaining fell away and left behind in its place the desperate, cornered look of man at the end of his rope.

"Wh-what . . . what do you all want f-from me?" he pleaded, his emotions leaking out in a mild stutter that made him sound almost like he was hiccuping while trying to speak. "I've told you all a d-dozen times that I'm sorry, that I didn't w-want to do it. Y-you think I enjoyed saying that crap to you? You've made it p-pretty obvious that you d-don't trust me any more, so there's no p-point in m-me staying here. What more d-do you want?"

"You made it pretty obvious that we had no_ reason _to trust you!" Daniel shouted, again ignoring Janet's attempt to calm him down.

"Do you expect us to just bounce right back like nothing happened?" Carter asked, suddenly unable to keep her own anger bottled any longer.

"N-no," Jack winced. He'd gone pale, his eyes glazed over, and was starting to tremble ever so slightly. Suddenly finding the floor fascinating, he dropped his gaze downwards and mumbled something under his breath.

Hammond, watching from his post across the room, recognized that he'd let this go way too far. "That's quite enough, Dr. Jackson, Major Carter!" he said, stepping forward.

Teal'c, the only one with good enough hearing to even make out a few syllables of what Jack had mumbled, suddenly placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder and physically forced the excitable younger man to back off a few steps as he questioned, "What did you say, O'Neill?"

Jack, gasping like he was drowning, closed his eyes and repeated in a hoarse whisper, "I . . . I d-don't think I can d-do this any m-more." He started to slide bonelessly down the wall he was still backed up against.

"Colonel!" both Fraiser and Carter yelped in surprise and moved closer, reaching him barely in time to slow his descent. He wound up lying in a heap at the base of the wall, one arm nearly covering his head, with Fraiser kneeling on his one side and Carter on the other. The slight trembles had become deep shudders as he continued to fight to steady his breathing. Fraiser, who had the only unblocked full view of his face, was stunned to see tears leaking from his tightly closed eyes. She reached out to touch his cheek and thought he felt unusually warm.

Seeing Jack fall, Hammond had realized with horror and no small amount of guilt that he might just be witnessing the nervous breakdown of one of the best officers he'd ever met. Pushing past Teal'c and Daniel he asked anxiously, "Is he alright, Doctor?"

Fraiser looked up at the general, blinking tears out of her own eyes. "I don't know, Sir. He feels a little hot, though. He might be running a fever."

Daniel, still held fast in Teal'c's grip, had finally been shocked out of his rage, the wind stolen from his sails by Jack's collapse. "A fever?" he asked dumbly.

Carter, meanwhile, had pulled back the arm Jack had tried to hide his head under and was staring down into his face.

"What do you mean, Sir?" she asked carefully. "What can't you do any more?"

"An-ny of this," he choked out, opening his eyes and letting the tears flow freely as he looked up numbly first at Carter and then each of the others. "I f-feel like m-most of the SGC still th-thinks I betrayed them. It sc-scared me how w-well I p-pushed everybody aw-way. And n-now I d-don't know h-how to m-make things r-right again. D-daniel is s-so angry and even Teal'c's b-been c-cold. Thought at l-least T w-would underst-stand. I d-don't know what you w-want from m-me. And I'm s-so t-t-tired . . ." his voice trailed off into a sob as his eyes wandered back up to Carter, meeting hers for a moment before he shut them again. He pulled tighter into himself, drawing his arm out of Carter's grasp and throwing it over his head again.

Hammond, Fraiser, and the rest of SG-1 collectively hesitated for a moment as they all stared at the shaking ball of misery Jack had curled himself into and listened to his breathing, now laden with harsh sobs.

Before any of them could recover and gather their wits, Carter and Fraiser were startled into scrambling back when a bright white light suddenly descended upon Jack. With a distinctive sound that they all recognized the light then vanished, taking Jack with it.

"The Asgard?" Hammond wondered aloud as Carter and Fraiser scrambled to their feet.

"What would they want . . ." Daniel started, but just as suddenly the same light claimed the five of them.

* * *

_So what do you think? Reviews are always welcome. A note on my expected update schedule for this fic: I have four parts of five complete, and the fifth half-way done. I plan to post a new part every Friday evening, hopefully without skipping any weeks, meaning I have something on the order of a month to finish this story. Wish me luck!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Shades of Friendship  
**by **Adalia Zandra**

_For summary, warnings, and other details, please see part one._

* * *

PART TWO

On the observation deck of an Asgard cruiser the light deposited six humans before vanishing again. Daniel's truncated question was turned into a shout of surprise when he saw the sixth person in the group.

". . . want with . . . Cassie?"

"Cassandra!" Frasier gasped at the same time. "What are you doing here? I thought I left you in my office!"

"I'm sorry, Mom," Cassie answered, contritely. "But I was looking for you to ask you if I could use your phone to call Alice. My friend from school," she clarified for the others, then continued, "I knew you were supposed to be in a meeting with the general but you said it was supposed to be a short one and I was getting bored waiting so I went to go look and the general's office was empty but the other door was part way open and I heard voices yelling and I peeked out and . . . why were you all being so mean to Jack?"

"That is a question I would also like an answer to, Cassandra Fraiser," Thor said, suddenly appearing in the doorway, with a distinctly angry tone to his voice.

"Thor," Hammond breathed a small sigh of relief to know for sure that they had been 'abducted' by an ally an not an enemy. "Is Colonel O'Neill alright?"

"He is presently asleep in his quarters," Thor replied vaguely.

"Jack has quarters aboard your ship?" Daniel asked in surprise.

"This is, in fact, O'Neill's ship," Thor said, amusement creeping into his voice. When the others just looked dumbfounded, he clarified. "I believe the correct Tau'ri phrase would be to say that he won it in a game of cards?"

"I am going to have a chat with the good colonel about playing poker with our alien allies," Hammond muttered. "Exactly how much time has he been spending with you without telling anyone?"

"O'Neill often spends a great deal of time on board when I am able to remain near Tau'ri space. We determined it would be beneficial to assign him permanent quarters. He has installed a . . ." Thor paused for a moment, trying to remember the proper words, then continued sounding very smug, ". . . a full king sized bed."

"Wow," Cassie said. "Cool!"

"Is he alright, Thor?" Carter repeated Hammond's earlier question, trying to bring the conversation back on topic.

The smile that had entered Thor's eyes when he spoke of O'Neill's card games and king sized bed left again when he replied, "When we are both in Tau'ri space I have developed the habit of keeping track of O'Neill. He requested that I do so in part so that he would not be transported aboard at an inconvenient time if it could be avoided. I had been called back to the Asgard High Council to report after the mission O'Neill performed for us. I arrived back in Tau'ri space several hours ago but had not started monitoring him again until only a few minutes ago. I noticed right away that he was ill and in distress. I admit to listening to the end of your conversation before transporting him here. I found what I heard very disturbing."

"But is he alright?" Fraiser asked.

"He is ill. He suffers from exhaustion, stress, and neglect. His temperature is several degrees higher than is normal. I have done all that I can for him. As I said, he is presently sleeping."

"May we see him, please?" Hammond asked.

"Not at the present time, no," Thor replied, the angry edge firmly back in his voice. "Before you ask any more questions I would like to hear the answer to Cassandra Fraiser's question."

"I . . ."

"He . . ."

"We didn't . . ."

Several voices started at once, overlapping each other. Thor raised a hand to silence them.

"Does any one of you have an explanation for your treatment of O'Neill since his return from the mission?" Thor demanded.

"I suspect not, Thor," Hammond sighed, glaring at the three present members of SG-1. "If you were listening to that conversation you know the status of things currently."

"Indeed, I do. And that is why I will only be returning you to the planet, General Hammond. I will require that the others remain until they can give me a satisfactory explanation for their behavior," Thor replied, pinning each of them in turn with his piercing gaze. Then he turned back to the general. "I understand that you may not remain away from your command for that length of time. Take this communication device so that we may contact each other if it becomes necessary. I will keep you updated on events here if you wish."

Hammond took the device and slipped it into his pocket. "I would appreciate that. Thank you."

Thor nodded. "I will transport you back when you are ready."

Hammond nodded back and then looked at the others. He thought for a moment, then spoke quietly. "I think this is for the best. I expect you to straighten yourselves out, people, and give Commander Thor his satisfactory answer. I am very much looking forward to hearing it, myself. Dr. Fraiser, I'm sure Thor will allow it if you wish Cassandra to return with me."

Cassie grabbed her mom's hand and said, "Can I stay, please, Mom? I don't have school all this week and I want to see Jack."

"Okay, honey," Janet replied. "Thank you, General, but she can stay."

"Alright then. Behave yourselves, all of you. I don't want to hear about any more altercations like the one in the briefing room. Understood?"

The chastened members of SG-1 all nodded their replies. Hammond sighed and shook his head almost sadly before turning back to Thor.

"Thank you, Commander Thor."

"I will keep in contact, General Hammond," Thor replied. He moved one of the controls on the panel in front of him and Hammond disappeared in a flash of light, transported back to the briefing room in the SGC.

Thor then turned to the remaining Tau'ri. "Sufficient nourishment for your stay here will be beamed up from your base stores. I will also have temporary quarters prepared for you. I will send someone to take you there in a short while, as I have things to attend to elsewhere in the ship. I suggest you spend some time discussing today's events. Good day," he said, and acknowledged their parting words with a nod before leaving the room.

They took a moment to let their situation sink in, sharing glances full of silent communication. Cassandra was the first to speak.

"Daniel?" she said, approaching him timidly. "Why are you so mad at Jack?"

"I . . . it's complicated, Cassie," Daniel waffled.

"Indeed it is not, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c spoke up. "We have in fact treated O'Neill with great disrespect in our puerile desire to seek retribution for actions which he did not willingly take against us."

The others stared at Teal'c for a moment.

"Huh?" said Cassie, breaking the short silence.

"He said we've been mean to Colonel O'Neill because we blamed him for something that happened which wasn't really his fault," Carter explained.

"What happened?" the girl asked curiously.

"Well, that _is_ kind of complicated, honey," Carter replied.

"No, I have to agree with Teal'c," Fraiser said then. "It isn't complicated at all. He pushed us all away like that because he was trying to protect us. And in return we've continued to treat him like the traitor he was forced to pretend to be. Meanwhile, he's gotten sick and we never even noticed. We're supposed to be his friends. I'm supposed to be his doctor!"

Daniel looked petulant and forged on with his argument, ignoring Janet's mention of Jack's sudden illness . "He meticulously tore apart his relationships with us. When I went to see him at his house he said our friendship had no foundation."

"He said those things so you would leave without asking more questions, Daniel," Sam pointed out, beginning to accept that she'd been wrong. "He really didn't want to hurt you, or the rest of us. But he had to, to make sure that we didn't get caught up in the dangers of his mission."

Teal'c nodded. "I believe it caused him great pain to do this. We have failed in our duty as his comrades by refusing to extend our forgiveness and support."

Fraiser and Sam nodded thoughtfully, but Daniel's expression was still clouded with simmering anger.

Cassie, standing silently, was starting to form her own opinions about what had apparently happened. She looked back and forth between the adults, almost as if she was watching a four way tennis match.

"I just can't let it go that easily," Daniel said pointedly.

Before the others could respond, an Asgard appeared in the doorway and beckoned them to follow. He led them to a fairly large room a few corridors over which had been set up with enough living and sleeping arrangements to accommodate the five of them nicely. There was a table along one wall laid out with what appeared to be standard SGC field rations. Their guide warned them that unauthorized wanderings beyond their quarters would not be tolerated, and left them to their own devices.

Sam investigated the food, glad that they would not have to eat the Asgard version thereof. The others settled themselves in around the room. Cassie sat quietly near her mother, and since no one else seemed willing to restart the conversation they waited in silence.

* * *

_Many thanks to those who commented! Since ya'll asked so nicely, I'll shorten my update schedule a bit. But be warned, this means I may not have the final part finished by the time I should be posting it on this new schedule. By the way, I freely admit that the characters would never act this way on the show. I decided to take them out of their usual characterizations for the purpose of setting up the situation I wanted to explore, one where Cassie and Thor were better models of friendship than SG-1 was._


	3. Chapter 3

**Shades of Friendship  
**by **Adalia Zandra**

_For summary, warnings, and other details, please see part one._

* * *

PART THREE 

Cassie eventually became bored with watching the adults attempt not to look guilty as they contemplated their recent behavior. "I'm hungry, Mom," she complained after they had whiled away most of the day with empty conversations about work and current events.

"Okay, honey," her mother replied, and then turned to the others. "We've been sitting here for hours and nothing seems about to happen. We might as well throw together some supper."

They did so, preparing several MREs and various snacks they found on the side table. The conversation remained as vague and superficial as it had since they had been unceremoniously deposited in their quarters by their Asgard escort.

Finishing her meal, Cassie interrupted the banal small talk with an abrupt, "Can we go see Jack now?"

Looking guilty again, the adults hemmed and hawed for a moment. Daniel ignored her request altogether and it was Teal'c who finally responded coherently.

"We are to wait here, Cassandra Fraiser. Commander Thor will summon us when the time is right," the Jaffa intoned.

Cassie looked first at him and then at the others with an expression of disbelief on her face. The adults looked everywhere but at her, even Teal'c refusing to meet her eyes for longer than a glance.

"I'm tired," she suddenly announced, her disgust at their passive reactions to their situation barely disguised in her voice. "Goodnight."

She headed for the sleeping area without waiting for a response, and curled up under a blanket. She appeared to drop off immediately to sleep.

One by one, the adults grew uncomfortable with the heavy silence and apparently fruitless waiting and followed her to bed.

When all was still Cassie cautiously sat up, wide awake. After reassuring herself that all her guardians were deep in sleep or Kel-no-reem, respectively, she snuck past them and out the door. Once in the hallway she stopped and thought for a moment about which way to go. Wanting to find Jack, but having no idea how to navigate the interior of an Asgard battle cruiser, she took a guess and picked the direction opposite from that which she knew led back to the room they had initially been beamed up to.

Wandering through the hallways she encountered no one, nor did she find any rooms containing king sized beds or sleeping Air Force Colonels. After what felt like hours to the young girl but what was really only about forty-five minutes, Cassie began to feel discouraged. She considered conceding defeat and heading back to the guest quarters, but her desire to find Jack and see how he was doing for herself caused her to push on.

Not more than ten minutes later she finally stumbled upon an occupied room. The Asgard inside turned their dark eyes on her and one calmly asked her why she was outside the guest quarters.

Nervous that she might have been wrong to sneak out of the guest quarters but unwilling to back down, she spoke demandingly but politely, "I want to see Jack, please."

The Asgard conferred amongst themselves for a moment, and then the one who had questioned her told her to follow him. She trailed him through several more hallways and was ushered into a room and told to wait.

Mere moments later, Thor entered.

"Is there something I can do for you, Cassandra Fraiser?" he inquired neutrally.

Thus assured that she was not really in trouble, Cassie decided to get right to the point.

"Mom and the others are too busy being guilty or in denial to actually do anything about it or apologize. But I haven't done anything wrong and I haven't even seen Jack in four months! I want to see him, Mr. Thor. Please?" she explained.

"I will take you to him," Thor agreed with a nod. "Your presence may do him some good. Come."

With that the Asgard commander led the young Cassandra back out into the hallway and across the ship. They arrived at a locked door which Cassie recognized as one she had been unable to open earlier in her explorations. Thor pressed a panel on the wall with one of the Asgard control crystals and the door quietly whooshed open. He waved the girl in ahead of him.

The first thing she noticed upon entering the room was a rather large Simpson's poster adorning the far wall, followed quickly by the imposing king sized bed that took up the majority of the available floor space. Curled up in the center of the bed, dwarfed by its size and nearly invisible amongst a nest of pillows and beneath a mountain of blankets, lay the man she had snuck out to find. He appeared to be sleeping restlessly.

"Is he okay?" Cassie stage whispered, glancing at her alien companion.

Thor replied in a whisper of his own, "As I said previously, he is ill. I believe his physical troubles will heal nicely on their own, given time and care."

Cassie regarded him frankly and replied, "But his friends were mean to him and that won't go away so nicely. And actually, we're more like his family, aren't we?"

"You are wise to understand the situation so clearly, young one," Thor complemented her with a nod. She smiled shyly back at him.

They both looked up as the pile of blankets on the bed stirred and they heard the man beneath cough. Thor headed for the side of the bed and Cassie came up beside him.

"Colonel O'Neill," Thor called gently.

That worthy coughed again, and the blankets shifted to reveal his face. His eyes were closed, an uneasy expression across his features. Hair damp with sweat spilled limply across his forehead.

"He looks really sick, are you sure he's okay?" Cassie asked worriedly, still speaking softly, as she crawled carefully up onto the bed next to Jack and reached over to gently push his unruly hair aside. He shifted under her touch, but remained asleep.

Thor picked up a small scanner from on top of a book that rested on the bedside table, and consulted its readout before replying, "His body temperature has returned to within normal parameters, but what he suffers from even the Asgard have no cure for. I believe the Tau'ri call it 'the common cold.' He simply needs rest and better nutrition. I have already done what I can to boost his body's own defenses against such disease."

As Thor spoke, his voice seemed to finally penetrate O'Neill's sleep fogged senses and register in his mind. His eyes blinked open and his admittedly blurry vision was filled with Cassie kneeling next to him on the bed, leaning over him.

"Why, Cassie, what a deep voice you have," he mumbled.

She giggled and replied, "That was Thor talking, Jack, not me!"

"Oh, that 'splains it, then," he said, reaching up to tickle her lightly. Even though the action was somewhat half-hearted she reacted with further giggling and shifted aside so he could see Thor, who had remained on the floor beside the bed.

"Greetings, O'Neill," the little alien said.

"'Lo again, Thor," Jack replied, a hand coming up to rub his eyes. "Thanks again for the rescue."

Thor nodded his acknowledgment and moved to put the scanner back down.

"So where'd you pop up from?" Jack asked, looking up at Cassie.

"I was hiding in the General's office 'cause I was looking for Mom and I heard you guys arguing, so I got beamed up when Thor beamed everybody else up," Cassie explained.

"Thor beamed everybody else up?" Jack questioned, turning back to the Asgard.

"I did, O'Neill," Thor nodded slightly. "Cassandra Fraiser's mother and the rest of your team are currently in the guest quarters of this ship. General Hammond is aware of this already, and is in agreement with me in this matter."

"What matter?" Jack wanted to know.

Cassie poked his shoulder lightly. "Mr. Thor and the General want to know why they're all being so awful. I think it's kinda like that time Mom grounded me 'til I apologized for knocking Freddy Lowell down at the playground."

Jack blinked at her, then at Thor. "Grounded?" he repeated.

"I believe that is a fair description, O'Neill," Thor replied. "But it is not for you to concern yourself with. Your only focus should be to rest and regain your health."

"Right," Jack drawled, yawning. "Not my problem. Retired, anyway."

"No you're not, Jack, the General never took your letter. Daniel stole it," Cassie reminded him. He winced at her mention of Daniel, a reaction she noticed. She went on, "But you don't have to worry about all that right now, 'cause me and Mr. Thor are here to make sure they won't be mean to you again."

As Jack and Thor both watched, one with detached amazement and the other with mild amusement, Cassie kicked her shoes off her feet and tossed them over the edge of the bed. She then proceeded to wiggle herself under the blankets around Jack, settling in so that she was curled up around his right shoulder. Her left arm snaked out and latched on around his chest, and her right hand reached up to hesitantly caress his forehead.

"You're still sick, Jack, you should go back to sleep. Right, Mr. Thor?" she asked, her hand moving down to rest against the side of Jack's head for a moment as she looked over at Thor.

"You should listen to your young friend, O'Neill. She is most wise," Thor said.

"Well, who am I to argue with such advice?" Jack replied, his voice fading as he relaxed back into the nest of pillows and closed his eyes. He sighed as Cassie tightened her grip across him and snuggled down with him, stroking her hand across his temple.

Jack unconsciously leaned into her soothing touch as the repetitive motion began to lull him back to sleep. When his breathing slowed and he appeared to have drifted off again, Cassie whispered to Thor, "I want to stay here. Will you make sure my Mom doesn't worry about me?"

"I will do so, Cassandra Fraiser. I am pleased that you wish to remain. It is better that he not be alone," Thor replied, nodding towards the sleeping man. He picked up a small device from the bedside table and showed it to the girl before placing it next to the duo lying on the bed. "This is a simple communicator. Press the indentation on the side if you or O'Neill need assistance of any sort. Either I or one of my crew will be with you as quickly as possible."

Cassie expressed her understanding with a nod and they exchanged hushed goodbyes. Thor left, closing the door behind him.

Jack sighed softly in his sleep, rolling towards Cassie and curling up on his side. She shifted with him, pulling up the blankets and then maintaining her grip with her left arm. She let her right hand trail down his face and come to rest on the pillow between them.

With a yawn of her own, Cassie let her eyes drift shut and joined Jack in slumber.

* * *

_Thanks again for the comments, everyone! I really appreciate hearing that somebody's reading and maybe enjoying this little story. We have two more parts to go, and don't worry, there will be apologizing in the future.Then we'll see if I can get up the courage to finish one of my numerous SG-1/MacGyver crossovers and post it, as well._

_In response to the concerns a couple of you have expressed now . . . I hear what you're saying. My aim with this story always included a premise which is completely unrealistic. Instead of trying to write a set up for it, which I thought would only draw out the ridiculously out of character actions of SG-1, I consciously decided just to jump in. (Hey, we're Stargate fans after all. If we can believe that Sam Carter could single-handedly blow up a sun, we can believe that SG-1 might fall apart this badly given just the right situation.) The point here, in my mind, is the team's journey towards understanding and reconciliation. If you can't stick with me on my way there because my premise really isn't valid or well introduced, it's my fault for picking this plot and your free choice to stop following the story. I'm sorry to lose a reader, and I hope my next fic agrees with you more. :-)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Shades of Friendship  
**by **Adalia Zandra**

_For summary, warnings, and other details, please see part one._

* * *

PART FOUR 

Several hours later, back in the guest quarters, Samantha Carter rose and headed, still half asleep, for the bathroom facilities they had found hidden behind a bulkhead in one corner of the room.

Slightly more awake on her way back to the sleeping area, Carter realized that they were short one person. One short person. She immediately went to wake Fraiser.

"Janet! Wake up, Janet. Cassie's missing," Sam called, shaking the doctor's shoulder.

Janet came awake quickly, reacting to her child's name. "Huh? Missing? Where could she possibly have gotten off to?"

"I don't know, but she isn't in here any more," Sam replied.

Daniel, woken by their voices, pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked around. "Have you checked in the bathroom?" he asked.

"I just came from there. She isn't here," Sam answered, shaking her head.

"Perhaps she has left the room to look for O'Neill," Teal'c spoke up from his position in the center of the floor, startling the three who had not realized he was also awake.

Janet got to her feet and headed straight for the door in response to his suggestion. She stuck her head outside and looked down the hallway, surprised to see a passing Asgard headed her way. What she and the others could not know was that Thor had arranged, after he had left Cassie in O'Neill's quarters, for there to be someone in their area every few minutes.

"Excuse me," Janet called out. "My daughter Cassandra is missing. I need to find her."

The Asgard paused to regard her, and replied with a nod, "I shall send for Commander Thor. I'm sure he will be able to assist you in locating your young one. Please remain here."

Janet contemplated heading out on her own to look for Cassie, but then thought better of it. Thor could undoubtably find her daughter using internal scanners much faster than she could by wandering around. She nodded at the Asgard and stepped back into the guest quarters with a grateful, "Thank you."

The four of them spent the next ten minutes waiting for Thor. Janet paced anxiously, trying to remind herself that there really wasn't anywhere for Cassie to go where she could get herself into real trouble. Daniel remained uncharacteristically sullen and quiet, while Teal'c remained very much characteristically calm and silent. Sam, left with no one willing to hold a conversation, sat and watched Janet pace.

Thor appeared in the doorway and the four of them descended upon him, three of them speaking at once. He merely stood there blinking at them until they quieted, then he spoke.

"There is no cause for alarm, Dr. Fraiser. Cassandra is with O'Neill," he said simply.

"Huh? She's with Jack?" Daniel asked.

"That is what I said, Dr. Jackson," Thor replied, a statement which, quite by design, gave them none of the further information they desired.

"I thought you weren't going to let us see the colonel for a while," Sam pointed out.

"That is correct," Thor replied.

"Okay, is anyone else really confused?" Daniel asked the room at large.

Thor chose to ignore that remark and instead asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"May we see O'Neill?" Teal'c queried, his tone of voice suggesting that he expected no less than immediate fulfillment of his request.

"No," Thor answered simply, causing Teal'c to raise an eyebrow. "As I have told you, he is ill and requires rest."

"I take it they are both basically alright, then," Janet wanted to clarify.

"They are. When I left them they were both asleep," Thor confirmed.

"But you aren't going to let us go to them," Sam asked.

"No," Thor repeated. "I am not."

"Oooh-kaaay, then!" Daniel drawled, tossing his hands up in a very Jack-like shrug as he turned away and headed back to the sleeping area.

"Thank you, Thor," Janet said after Daniel had moved away. "I was worried when Cassie turned up missing."

"She warned me such would be the case and asked me to make sure you were aware of her location," Thor replied. "If that is all, I must go now."

"If you're sure you won't let us see Colonel O'Neill," Sam said hopefully.

Thor cocked his head to the side and regarded her for a moment, then said as he turned to leave, "I am quite sure."

When he was gone, Sam and Janet walked back over to the sleeping area. Teal'c followed part of the way and settled himself back down in the middle of the floor. Daniel had sat back down where he had been sleeping, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at some unidentifiable point on the ceiling with a belligerent expression on his face.

"Why are we just sitting around up here? I don't know about the rest of you, but I've got work I could be doing back in my office," Daniel complained.

"Daniel!" Janet scolded. "You know darn well why we're stuck here."

"Well, he does have a good point," Sam said thoughtfully. Before Janet could scold her as well, she went on, "I mean, in that we could be doing more than just sitting here."

Teal'c looked at her with interest from his seat on the floor and asked, "What would you suggest that we do, Major Carter? Have we not been told to remain here?"

"We have, but that's just the point," Sam went on. "Since when have we ever just sat where we were told to like good little Tau'ri, especially when one of our own is hurt and separated from us?"

"You make an interesting point, Sam," Janet allowed, "but it's not like we've been captured by an enemy. The Asgard are one of our strongest allies and Thor is only trying to help Colonel O'Neill. Something we've failed dreadfully at lately."

"I don't know," Sam shook her head. "It just doesn't feel right to just sit here. And how come Cassie was allowed to stay with the colonel, but we aren't even allowed to see him?"

"I don't know, Sam. All I know is we've failed to treat Colonel O'Neill with the respect and friendship he's more than earned, and I, for one, feel pretty terrible about it," Janet replied.

Teal'c nodded his agreement and seemed about to say something, but Daniel's snorted retort cut him off. "Respect and friendship, hah."

"Daniel, come on!" Sam protested. "Haven't you dragged this out long enough? Don't you realize we treated him horribly, when he was hurt just as much by what happened as we were?"

Daniel looked disconcerted for a moment, as if maybe he hadn't thought that Jack might have felt as hurt as he himself had over their violated friendship. But he shook his head and said, "I just don't think I can forgive him that easily."

"What will it take, then, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.

"What will it take before you can forgive him?" Janet added.

"I . . . I don't know," Daniel sighed, looking back and forth between his three companions. "It's just . . . Jack . . . and all of you . . . are the closest thing I've had to a stable family in a long time. Abydos and Sha're came really close to that ideal, but . . . you guys know what happened after my year there. So SG-1 is all I've got now. And Jack . . . he tore that apart. Purposefully. Thoroughly. I haven't felt so completely devastated since . . . since my parents died, I think."

"God, Daniel," Sam said, reaching over to touch his shoulder. "You know he didn't mean it. You know why he had to do it. Why keep pushing him away?"

"Because it hurt, Sam. I guess that's what I do when I'm hurt. I push people away, so I won't get hurt again," Daniel replied, looking back up at the ceiling because he couldn't make himself meet her eyes.

"But you've only ended up hurting yourself, and him, even more," Janet pointed out.

"I know, I just . . . I don't know what to do," Daniel mumbled.

"I believe an apology would be an appropriate place to begin, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c suggested.

"I guess you're right, Teal'c," Daniel agreed. "It's not like he hasn't apologized a dozen times already. God, I really have been horrible to him, haven't I."

"It's not like you're the only one," Sam felt she had to point out. "I was angry that he hadn't trusted us enough to let us help him. But instead of telling him that and maybe clearing the air between us, I just avoided the issue by avoiding him."

"I am also guilty of mistreating O'Neill," Teal'c admitted. "As he pointed out in the briefing room, I should have understood the situation. But I allowed my own hurt feelings to control my actions."

"And I've been avoiding him, too," Janet said. "I was just so shocked by how he'd acted. I think almost everyone on base was. No one was sure how to act around him after he got back. And while I was busy ignoring him, he got sick. Some doctor I am."

Daniel looked up sharply at the self disgust in her voice. "Hey," he said. "It's not like you've been ungodly 'mean' to him, the way Cassie pointed out that I have."

"I'm his doctor! I should have known that he was coming down with something," Janet cried. "For heaven's sake, he collapsed in the briefing room, Daniel!"

"Only because I practically attacked him!" Daniel shouted back.

"Hey! Stop it, you two!" Sam called a halt. "We're all guilty here. None of us noticed that he'd gotten sick, or what he was going through because of each of our reactions. The important thing now, is what are we going to do about it?"

"Perhaps Cassandra Fraiser has already shown us the correct course of action," Teal'c mused.

"Sneak out?" Janet asked.

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "Sneak out and find Colonel O'Neill on our own. I understand that Thor just wants to help, but nobody keeps SG-1 from getting to one of our own."

"Okay . . . okay, but can we do that?" Daniel asked, looking up. "I mean, can we find him? I don't know about you, but I don't know the inside of an Asgard battle cruiser from the inside of a Naquadah reactor."

"Well that's okay, then, because Sam knows reactors!" Janet pointed out. "I'm sure between us we can figure it out. We know Cassie found him."

"Actually, Thor never said she found him, just that she was there. What if Thor's actually been waiting for us to grow a collective backbone and go looking for him?" Sam wondered.

"I guess that would explain why he allowed Cassie to stay," Daniel mused.

"It would seem that Supreme Commander Thor and Cassandra Fraiser have both been better role models of friendship than we," Teal'c stated.

The others nodded solemnly, internally acknowledging their recent failures in behavior.

After a moment, Sam perked up and said, "Shall we, then?"

All four rose and headed for the door. Teal'c, leading the way, checked the hallway. When he found it empty he motioned the others after him and set off in the same direction Cassie had earlier, away from the room they had been beamed aboard into.

In another room across the ship, Thor turned off a monitoring panel on which he had been watching the Tau'ri and smiled an enigmatic Asgard smile.

* * *

_Thank you everyone for your supportive comments! It's been a joy to find them sitting in my email inbox every evening. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. We have one more part to go! The final chapter is finished, I'd just like some time to edit it. Expect it in a day or two. :-)_


	5. Chapter 5

**Shades of Friendship  
**by **Adalia Zandra**

_For summary, warnings, and other details, please see part one._

* * *

PART FIVE 

Turning on another panel, Thor was able to track his Tau'ri guests' progress through the corridors of his ship as they began their search for their comrade. He was pleased and almost paternally proud when they quickly reached the correct conclusion that O'Neill would most likely be behind a locked door, and that they could easily locate such doors to narrow their search by using a ship's computer access panel. A panel was easily found nearby and between them, Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson had no trouble puzzling out the Asgard information display in order to query the computer for a map showing locked doors in the ship.

Obtaining their map, they peered at it for a long moment, alternately pointing out likely spots and unlikely spots out of those lit up on the screen. Teal'c proposed to the others what he saw as the most likely location, a lone locked door only one corridor over from a large sprawling section of the ship full of locked doors. His logic was that O'Neill's quarters would be near the Asgard version of Officers' Row, but still separate.

The others agreed readily. They charted their route and headed off, Teal'c again leading the way after Carter had returned the access panel to its dormant state.

It took them no more than fifteen minutes to arrive at the door they suspected led to their missing leader's quarters. They stood in a row in front of it, discussing the merits of various methods of gaining entry.

"Well, I suppose I could pry off the lock panel and hot-wire it, or something," Sam said hesitantly.

"Did Thor not assure us Cassandra Fraiser was inside?" Teal'c reminded them. "If this is the correct room, we need only to knock."

"Teal'c has a point," Daniel agreed.

"And if this isn't Colonel O'Neill's quarters, we'll save ourselves a bucket load of embarrassment being caught breaking into the wrong room," Fraiser nodded.

Sam shrugged, and Teal'c took this as unanimous agreement with his suggestion. He reached up and knocked solidly on the door.

They waited a breathless moment. Just as Teal'c was about to try knocking again, the door whooshed open and they were confronted with a sleepy Cassie, minus her shoes.

She blinked up at them.

"Hi, Mom. Hi, guys," she then greeted them, reigning in a yawn. "Why are you here?"

"We came to see the colonel, honey," Janet told her daughter.

"Well I knew that," Cassie pointed out with the air of one voicing the patently obvious which only a child can achieve, all the while insinuating that it had sure taken them long enough to get there. "I mean, why do you want to see him?"

The adults were stymied for a moment, each trying to decide how to answer that question.

This time, it was Daniel who found the right words.

"We came to apologize," he admitted simply.

Cassie regarded him critically, asking, "You promise you aren't gonna be mean to him any more? 'Cause I promised Jack I wouldn't let you."

Daniel had the good grace to look embarrassed. "I promise, Cass. I'm not going to be mean any more. None of us are."

She nodded gravely, then looked at each of the others as they all nodded their support for Daniel's promise.

"Okay," she said then, stepping back into the room and unblocking the doorway for them. "But I think he's still asleep so be quiet, okay?"

They trooped in after her, quietly as requested, taking in the room in which they found themselves. In turn they noticed the Simpson's poster, the huge bed, and Cassie's shoes tossed carelessly on the floor next to Jack's neatly placed boots. Cassie climbed carefully back up on the bed, and crawled to the center to settle herself down next to the bed's sleeping occupant. The others arranged themselves nearby. Janet stood on the opposite side of the bed, somewhat near her daughter, with Sam seated stiffly on the edge of the bed next to her. Daniel took a stance across the bed from Sam, too nervous to sit. Teal'c remained standing as if on guard at the foot of the bed.

Situated thus, they all got their first good look at Jack O'Neill since they'd seen him collapse in the briefing room. Some of the color had returned to his features, though he still looked wrung out and exhausted. He lay on his left side, curled tightly around himself and burrowed deep into his nest of blankets and pillows. Though he looked to be resting comfortably at first blush, the close scrutiny of those who knew him well revealed a sense of deep seated unease lurking below the calm exterior. He looked sick and tired, literally.

They were content to watch him for a while, unwilling to disturb him but equally as unwilling to leave him again. It was only when he shifted restlessly for the fourth time in a row that they began to entertain the idea of waking him. Cassie, ignoring the others in favor of her self-appointed role as Jack's protector, began to stroke his temple the same way she had in her previous, successful attempts to lull him back to sleep.

Her ministrations had the desired effect, at least temporarily. Jack settled again and his sleep remained untroubled as long as Cassie continued the soothing strokes. Whenever she paused he would again shift uneasily, as if he were trying to burrow even deeper into the bed to get comfortable and never quite succeeding. It slowly dawned on the others that her touch grounded him and seemed to afford him enough of a sense of peace in order to quell his restlessness.

Daniel, acting instinctively on this realization, reached past Cassie's protective grasp to lay a hand on Jack's arm. Sam followed suit a split second later, resting her hand on his shoulder. Seeing that this had no adverse effects, Teal'c and Janet also moved forward and sought contact with the blanket covered form.

Their combined touches seemed to do the trick. O'Neill's vaguely troubled expression softened and his body uncurled slightly and took on a more relaxed pose. A moment later he rolled over so he was lying on his back, the position he was normally accustomed to sleeping in. As the others shifted to maintain their connection with him Daniel inadvertently bonked the side of Cassie's head with his forearm.

Cassie yelped in surprise, and Janet whispered, "Smooth, Daniel," before leaning over to make sure her daughter was alright.

As they were distracted by the slight commotion, Sam and Teal'c both turned away from the center of the bed and failed to see Jack's eyelids flutter.

"I'm _fine_, Mom," Cassie hissed with the self-assured authority of a child, ducking her mother's concerned touch even as Daniel mumbled an apology.

The combination of motion and noise finally woke Jack, who had blinked slowly a few times and managed to take in the scene around him before any of the others realized he was conscious.

"Hi," he greeted Cassie, pointedly ignoring her mother his team. "Kinda crowded in here, doncha think?"

"They promised they'd be nice," Cassie replied. "They wanna talk."

"Oh, they do, do they?" Jack said, finally acknowledging the others with his gaze, still speaking mildly.

Sam, recognizing the hidden scorn in Jack's calm voice, carefully responded, "We all want to apologize. I'm sorry that I couldn't see past my own emotions in order to come to you honestly so we could talk this out before it got so bad. I acted unprofessionally, Sir, and I can only hope you'll be able to accept my apology and work with me in the future."

Speechless at this one-eighty flip in demeanor from the last time he had seen his team, Jack simply nodded mutely. Before he could think of anything appropriate to say, Teal'c jumped in.

"I have behaved similarly, O'Neill. I have doubted you, and failed you in your hour of need. Please accept my deepest apologies, my brother," Teal'c stated simply. Jack acknowledged him with another silent, solemn nod.

Janet went next, clearing her throat nervously and admitting, "I should have realized you were ill, Sir, and I would have if I hadn't been avoiding you because I couldn't accept what had happened. My behavior was negligent in both my duties as your doctor and as someone whom I hope you've come to consider a friend. There aren't words to express how badly I feel about it, and how sorry I am."

All eyes turned to Daniel after Jack had awarded Janet a small smile as a sign that he understood what she had said. Daniel stared down at the bedspread for a long moment, before gathering his courage and looking Jack in the eye.

"I'm . . . I've been an ass, Jack," Daniel sighed.

Jack did nothing more than nod solemnly, unwilling to as of yet to throw Daniel a metaphorical line.

Taking this response in stride, Daniel spoke again, "I didn't think. All I could see was my own hurt, and it never even occurred to me to look at this situation from your point of view. I was too busy refusing to be reasonable, blinded by my anger. I think I'm still angry, but not really at you. It was selfish of me to blame you and I was wrong to treat you the way I did. I . . . I'm sorry, Jack. _I'm_ the one who betrayed _you._ Do you think you can ever forgive me?"

Jack looked up at Daniel's hopeful, regretful features and wondered how the younger man would take it if he returned the treatment he'd received over the past two weeks since his triumphant return. Sighing philosophically, Jack pushed past his desire for a childish revenge and decided that his relationships with these people were more important to him than the fleeting and bitter satisfaction he could get from turning their own rejection back upon them and hurting them in return. Ready to acknowledge their apologies, if not quite forgive them yet, Jack opened his mouth to speak.

An odd look crossed his face for a split second before he made a sound, and then he sneezed explosively. Twice in rapid succession. The uncomfortable tension was completely broken as the adults chorused, "Gesundheit."

"'Bless you," Cassie giggled.

"Need a hankie, Jack? Decongestants, maybe? Box of Kleenex?" Daniel snickered, smiling brightly at the absurdity of the timing.

Jack, sniffling, grinned back. "Shut it, Doctor 'I Sneeze In The Face Of Danger' Jackson."

"Hey, it works for me," Daniel replied.

"Doc? Do you actually happen to have any decongestants on you?" Jack said hopefully, turning to Janet and ignoring Daniel's rejoinder.

Janet shook her head to the negative, and Teal'c said, "O'Neill, does the return of your accustomed mode of communication with Daniel Jackson indicate a favorable resolution of this regrettable situation?"

"Ah, yes, Teal'c. I think that's exactly what it indicates," Jack replied. "I'm not happy with what happened, and how you all acted. But I think I can at least accept your apologies in the spirit you gave them."

"Thank you, Sir," Sam said, still feeling somewhat mortified about her unprofessional conduct, not to mention her failure to act like a good friend, over the past two weeks.

"It's gonna be okay, Carter," Jack reassured her, sniffling again. "Since I apparently have _not_ retired, I think SG-1 will be back in business soon enough."

"That reminds me," Daniel spoke up, catching Jack's attention. "I want to talk to you later about some of the things we said in the briefing room when you told us you wanted to retire and break up SG-1."

"Oooookay . . . ." Jack drawled apprehensively, still wary of Daniel's volatile emotions.

"Just so we can make sure we understand each other, to fix whatever's obviously been broken here. I want a chance to make up for my behavior. Maybe over beer and pizza this weekend?" Daniel added, trying to lighten the mood again.

"Sounds like a plan," Jack obligingly agreed. "Assuming we're back on planet Earth by then, anyway."

"Do you want me to call Mr. Thor, Jack?" Cassie asked, proffering the communication device the Asgard commander had shown her earlier.

"Please, Cass. Your mom's probably itching to have me beamed back into her lair," Jack answered, giving Janet a sideways look and a lopsided grin, which she returned with a slight nod.

Cassie pressed the side of the device, which emitted a soft beeping sound for a moment, then fell silent. Assuming that this meant Thor had been alerted, Cassie put the device back down and snuggled back up next to Jack to wait. He lifted his arm out of her way and she curled up happily against his side with a yawn.

"Did you get any sleep, Cassie?" Janet asked her daughter.

"Some, but only a little," she admitted, yawning again, causing Jack to respond with an uncontrollable yawn of his own.

"You should probably get some rest, too, Sir," Janet said. "You're still fighting that cold virus."

"I am still feeling kinda tired," Jack answered, looking critically at the others. "But you guys don't look so hot, yourselves."

"Haven't been sleeping too well lately," Sam mumbled, studying the floor.

"Hey, there's plenty of room all over this mattress, guys. Make yourselves comfortable," Jack offered.

The others look nervously at each other for a moment, then at Jack, then at various spots around the room, unsure how to respond to his invitation.

Teal'c, deciding to break the sudden awkward moment with his usual aplomb, carefully sat on the end of the bed. In a very human gesture, he reached down to quickly loosen his laces and then kicked off his boots. He took a moment to line them up neatly, then swung his somewhat large body mass gracefully around and tucked his legs underneath himself. Sitting there cross legged, facing Jack from the foot of the bed, Teal'c said simply, "Thank you, O'Neill. I believe I will benefit greatly from Kel-no-reem at this time."

Taking Teal'c's lead, Janet sat herself down comfortably next to Cassie, leaning her back against the headboard. Sam, who had been sitting stiffly at attention on the very edge of the bed, relaxed her posture and pulled one knee up onto the bed, crossing her ankles. She propped her head up with one arm, leaning the elbow against her raised knee.

Daniel hesitated the longest, until Jack turned his baleful gaze on him and said, "Are you waiting for an engraved invitation, Danny? Take a load off."

Daniel shrugged and gave in, sitting down to mirror Janet's position on Jack's opposite side.

Satisfied, Jack yawned again and let his head fall back against the pillow. He and Cassie both nodded off quickly, with his exhausted teammates soon behind them. When Thor arrived a few moments later, only Sam was still truly awake. Teal'c had immersed himself in his meditation, Daniel was dozing, and Janet had flat out fallen asleep with one hand placed near Cassie to reassure herself that her daughter was safe.

Sam greeted Thor with a wave and a nod. Speaking softly, she told him, "We've all apologized for behaving so badly. I'm not sure the Colonel has actually forgiven us, but he seemed willing to let us try to make it up to him. We'd like to beam back to the base when everyone's awake again."

"I am pleased with your team's attempts at reconciliation, Major Carter, though I am disturbed by the length of time it took for you to reach this point. As I can do no more for Colonel O'Neill here, I am willing to beam you all back to your base when, as you said, everyone is awake again. Until then, you are all of course welcome to remain here or move about freely as you wish."

"Thank you, Commander Thor. Would you please contact General Hammond and let him know that we're okay?" Sam asked.

"Of course," Thor answered. "I will do so now. Activate the communicator again when you are ready to leave, or if you require anything."

At Carter's nod, Thor took his leave. Sam slouched back down again and sighed.

Daniel opened his eyes and their gazes met across the bed.

"I think we've been taught a lesson in friendship by an alien and a little girl. That doesn't reflect very well on us," Daniel whispered.

"Well, our behavior hasn't, either. We needed the lesson they had to give us," Sam replied in a similar hushed tone.

"I'm glad you've learned your lesson, then. But school's out now, kids. Go to sleep," Jack mumbled without opening his eyes.

Sharing a grin, Sam and Daniel settled in to follow their friend's orders. Sam curled up sideways between Teal'c and Janet's feet, and Daniel slid down so he was stretched out next to Jack. Both dropped off to sleep within minutes.

SG-1 plus Janet and Cassie remained in Jack's quarters for the next several hours, piled together on the huge bed like a litter of puppies, peacefully sleeping off the tension and exhaustion the past few weeks had generated. The had reconnected, both physically and emotionally, and the rift between them that had first opened upon Jack's return from his three month stay on Edora had finally begun to heal.

Back in his control room, Thor contacted General Hammond and explained that SG-1 had resolved their quarrel to his satisfaction and that he would be beaming them directly to the infirmary in a few hours when they had woken again.

Hammond thanked Thor for his intervention, promising the Asgard that he would be doing his best to make sure this situation did not repeat itself in the future. Thor apologized for the necessity of putting the Tau'ri through the entire ordeal, and informed Hammond that the Asgard High Council was pleased with Jack's efforts.

The two exchanged pleasantries for a moment, and then signed off. Hammond placed the communicator on his desktop, where it remained for the next few hours, until it was beamed away when his personnel were returned.

Sitting behind his desk, George Hammond contemplated the near disaster he had witnessed in the briefing room. He was horrified at how badly his flagship team had fallen apart, and how close they had all come to losing Jack O'Neill. Hammond silently resolved to sit down with Jack and apologize for the entire misbegotten situation, especially for failing to help protect him from the fallout following his return. Sighing philosophically, Hammond wondered what he would have done if Thor hadn't been there to diffuse the argument in the briefing room.

The general's musings were interrupted by a ringing phone, which he answered absentmindedly. Discovering that the SGC had apparently run out of red Jell-O due to a supply order mishap and that the kitchen staff were wondering why several day's worth of previously missing base supplies had suddenly reappeared in the middle of the commissary, Hammond resigned himself to the fact that his job was never going to be simple.

Life at the SGC moved on as SG-1 recuperated in O'Neill's orbiting home away from home.

* * *

_And here we are, at the end. My thanks go out to those of you who commented along the way. I'm glad you enjoyed the story. Hopefully, if the travesty known as real life does not prevent it, I will have another story up in progress soon. The next one's going to be an SG-1/MacGyver crossover . . . my favorite genre to write._


End file.
